May 29

Bayou Farewell

General Interest, Social Commentary 1 Comment »
Leeville, LA 2007

Leeville, Louisiana

In 1998, while living north of Boston, I co-founded an internet services company in Atlanta. The following year, when the venture got traction, my family and I left New England, moved to the South, and began a new chapter in our lives. For the next eight years, when not consumed with work, I explored much of the region with my family.

Moving from the Northeast was quite a change, but not for the typical reasons. For us, we gave up regional character, culture and cuisine. For those of you who read the blog I write with my wife, The Two Palaverers, you know why I borrowed that alliteration.  Immediately, we began our quest to discover what we left a thousand miles behind. Happily over time, we found it in places like Charleston, South Carolina, Savannah, Georgia, and Natchez, Mississippi, but we knew we hit the jackpot with Louisiana.

For years, we made many visits to Louisiana, exploring much of the state. Each trip offered a different, more stimulating experience, whether it was eating alligator in Lafayette, watching a Sunday service procession along the Mississippi River south of Baton Rouge, or listening to an emerging jazz trio near Tulane University. Louisiana has soul.

Bayou Farewell by Mike TidwellIn 2004, at a local bookstore in Atlanta, I came across a book called Bayou Farewell by Mike Tidwell. Because my reading queue was continuing to expand, I resisted the purchase, but returned the following day and bought it, putting it at the front of my reading list. A few days later it was read. From the start, Tidwell hypnotized me with his chronicle of the people south of New Orleans in Cajun country and on the Gulf. He methodically navigated such diverse subjects as culture, shrimpers, boat maintenance – and oil. He successfully captured the essence of this part of Louisiana.

Not long after reading the book, I retraced many of Tidwell’s paths through Cajun country and such small towns as Leeville, Galliano, and Golden Meadow. The more I saw, the more I was convinced – and concerned – by how ecologically fragile this region was. Decades of silt loss from the Mississippi and pipeline runs through the swampland were having a range of effects from land erosion to wetland depletion.

Today, we’re all shocked by the endless flow of oil and images from the massive leak in the Gulf. Oil from this region is important to both the people of Lousisiana and the rest of us around the country. I’m sure we’ll have more insight to the cause as the seepage stops. Like every catastrophe, I expect there to be no shortage of warning signs ignored. We won’t know the ultimate impact on the inhabitants or environment for some time. Hurricane Katrina knocked Louisiana down, but it survived. This oil spill, though, is different. I hope it’s not Bayou Farewell.

Rob Ciampa

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Jan 30

The Fragile Nature of Brand Equity

Brand, Business, Competitive Strategy, Customer Service, General Interest, Marketing, Social Commentary, Social Media No Comments »

Brand Equity is a House of CardsAs marketers and business leaders, we spend years, if not a lifetime, cultivating our brands. They define who we are and generate an annuity of business and goodwill for decades. That annuity helps grow the value our brand equity. Our customers, by purchase and by proxy, derive benefit from our brands. Go walk into a Starbucks. Who is there? Why are they there? What are they drinking? What computers are they using? What are they wearing? What are they reading? It’s all brand. Marketing 101.

So if brand is so important, why are we seeing some of the strongest ones tumble? Because brands are incredibly fragile. Just look at Tiger Woods and Toyota as recent examples. The fallout is not just to the brand-owners but to those who derive ancillary benefit. Tiger Woods’ sponsors are leaving because the brand actually has negative value and it impacts them. Personally, I love watching Tiger play and I enjoy hopping into my Toyota SUV and driving through the New England snow. I’m disheartened by both recent events.

The brand equity ascent is slow and arduous; the descent is fast and dangerous. Paraphrasing a former business partner of mine:

If you’re not careful, you can go from a hero to a has-been in heartbeat.

How true. Is it more challenging these days to protect a brand? Absolutely. The velocity of communications and the acceleration effects of social media leave little time to react.  And remember: bad news is like gasoline and good news is like water – all it takes is one strike of a match.

Is there a cure? Not entirely, but integrity sure goes a long way. Not just integrity from the start (Tiger Woods) but also integrity when dealing with and addressing problems as they arise (Toyota). We’ll see how they (and many others) try to regain their brand equity. Much, however, depends on whether those of us who benefit will remain loyal.

Rob Ciampa

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Dec 12

Healthcare Color by Numbers

Social Commentary 4 Comments »

It’s tough looking at things objectively because it just doesn’t evoke the passion, the rhetoric or the sweat that seems to quench our daily thirst for opinion. One of the reasons I like Color by numbersFacebook is that it’s a great platform for people to let us know how they feel (non objectively) about things and ensures us a great reservoir of that passion, rhetoric and sweat. I very much enjoy diverse views, something that tends to drive my wife crazy, the opinionated person that she is. “My dear,” I told her, “because I have varied views does not imply I lack strong opinions or convictions. If I’m going to jump on a soap box, I better understand all sides.”  It should be no surprise, then, that the healthcare debate is proving to be one of those defining moments, one that has generated a flood of opinion all the way from Facebook to my home.

HealthcareBillOver the past several months, I spent time reviewing the proposed healthcare legislation, read editorial pieces on both sides of the issue, spoke with doctors and providers, and exchanged ideas with colleagues having diverse opinions. Have I formulated an opinion on healthcare reform? No – and that’s really starting to bother me. Why? Because I’ve invested so much time trying to figure out this societal predicament. Do I think healthcare is broken? Absolutely. The issue, though, is not whether we have to fix it, but rather the approach we take to doing so.

This is where I have an issue with both sides (are there really just two?) in the debate. Why? Because we have no way to measure spending or gauge the current performance of our healthcare system. We have neither quantified healthcare nor have we put together actionable data. Some people will jump up and down over this assertion, but there is no common baseline or framework sufficient for quantitative analysis. Some will argue that looking at things this way – objectively – will risk lives and depersonalize care.  Time for a strong opinion:

Being able to sufficiently quantify healthcare will allow us to make informed decisions, to allocate resources much more efficiently and, ultimately, to provide better care and save lives.

One of my friends challenged my views on this concept, claiming “Healthcare is too complicated to fix and it won’t fit into one of your mathematical equations, Rob.” That’s the problem. How can we possibly fix a system we can’t measure? We won’t know if it’s fixed or where it’s broken!

Our efforts in healthcare should be directed at getting the numbers in place and baselines established – and doing this fast. In the meantime, the debate train moves on. From yesterday’s Wall Street Journal on Olympia Snowe, the senior United States Senator from Maine:

Mrs. Snowe began by noting that this year’s health debate is “one of the most complex and intricate undertakings the Congress has ever confronted,” and that she, too, has devoted much of her three-decade political career to promoting cheaper, better quality insurance. “But it must be done in an effective, common-sense and bipartisan way,” she cautioned.

Real numbers will help simplify the decision, promote bipartisanship, and get public support.  Make all the numbers public. There’s a valuable lesson from the open source world in technology: when all the information is publicly accessible, more people will look at it, analyze it and make it actionable.  Let’s give the numbers to a couple hundred million people and we’ll get some great results. Remember Color by Numbers? It was – for me at least – a lot easier to work from than a blank canvas.

Rob Ciampa

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Nov 27

A Statistically-Interesting Social Media Thanksgiving with Sarah Palin

General Interest, Marketing, Social Commentary, Social Media 1 Comment »

Sarah Palin Pardoning TurkeyWhat a difference a year makes. Last year, our large Thanksgiving gathering was still divided and at odds over the then recent 2008 presidential election. With the exception of Sarah Palin, which I’ll address shortly, a new, shiny object showed up with the holiday turkey: social media. With three generations at the table ranging from ages twelve to eighty, I knew it was going to be an interesting discussion. For my statistically-oriented and pollster-pushing friends, here is a measurable tidbit: everyone in attendance had an email address – and that included “the elders.” For simplicity, let’s segment the gathering into the elders (60 +), the kids (20 -) and the mid-market (20-60).

As a marketing guy and a card-carrying member of the mid-market, I was at an interesting vantage point because I’ve used all of the social media vehicles. I had to explain the role of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs, Digg, etc. What intrigued me, though, were the divergent and interesting views on social media. Here are some take-aways:

  • The kids thought the other generations at the table were Luddites and couldn’t understand why we weren’t texting between bites of cranberry sauce and stuffing.
  • The mid-market and elders believe Facebook should be about connecting friends and not about communicating to your-sister’s-classmate’s-cousin-from-Fresno-CA’s-favorite-Starbucks-barista.
  • The kids had an average 582 friends vs. about 87 for the mid-market. From our sample, none of the elders had Facebook, but were very interested.
  • Only the mid-market, marketing guy and his wife (Mrs. Market Research) had a Twitter account. None of the kids “got” Twitter and thought it was weird. Go figure.
  • LinkedIn was deemed very intriguing by the mid-market and the elders, though the brand recognition was weak. The kids challenged the concept of LinkedIn when one already had a Facebook account. (Why do the non-kids segments feel this way? Because business colleagues generally don’t want to see one another in skimpy bathing suits and compromising situations.)
  • Social bookmarking was not well known across all three segments. When I explained the concept, everyone thought the idea was great, but didn’t like that fact that there were so many choices. The one-stop shopping rule returns.
  • Most at the table don’t understand long URLs and want to shorten them. I explained bit.ly to a few, but they didn’t necessarily like the new, cryptic URLs either.

After the social media discussions ended, Sarah Palin showed up again this year as a hot topic. As always, she remains a divisive subject, especially now that her new book is out. I tried to remain objective between the Maureen Dowd-esque and Sean-Hannity-esque banter (and flying drumsticks) at the table. In an effort to mediate the debate, I raised the subject of her use of Facebook and Twitter, which only empowered both sides at the table. I’ll try to remain neutral again next year, though I suspect my analysis of her use of social media may not fly again. I will be especially interested at the Thanksgiving 2010 to see how the market segmentation changes and which social media vehicles are in vogue.

Rob Ciampa

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